Big Questions for Tyndale House After Pulling Boy Who Came Back From Heaven (UPDATED)

UPDATE 2 (1/17/15) – Last night Tyndale released a statement indicating that the company has stopped printing The Boy book because of information they received this week.

Earlier this week Tyndale learned that Alex Malarkey, co-author of ‘The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven,’ was retracting the story he had told his father and that he recounted in the book they co-authored for publication in 2010. It is because of this new information that we are taking the book out of print. For the past couple of years we have known that Beth Malarkey, Kevin’s wife and Alex’s mother, was unhappy with the book and believed it contained inaccuracies. On more than one occasion we asked for a meeting with Kevin, Beth, Alex and their agent to discuss and correct any inaccuracies, but Beth would not agree to such a meeting.

However, Phil Johnson continues to dispute this narrative saying that Beth and Alex wanted to meet with Tyndale (see this link for emails).
It is not clear if Tyndale is pulling product from the shelves or just not reprinting the book.
UPDATE: Phil Johnson claims Tyndale House knew two years ago that the Boy Who Came Back from Heaven was invented. Beth Malarkey retweeted this link when Johnson posted it. I expect to hear from her soon, but as of now all I am hearing is crickets from Tyndale House.


 
…………….
(Original post begins here)
Yesterday afternoon, Tyndale House announced that the company would no longer publish the Boy Who Came Back from Heaven.
The book had been a best-seller and was the basis for a television movie of the same name in 2010. There are at least two big questions for Tyndale House now that the company will no longer print the book. I asked Tyndale House spokesperson Todd Starowitz these questions yesterday via email and twitter and left phone messages, thus far with no answers.
First, what now happens to all of the existing product? We know that Lifeway Christian Stores is returning existing product to the publisher, but what about other retailers? Even though negative reviews are now piling up, Amazon still carries the book without disclaimer. Barnes and Noble still has it available. A local Barnes and Noble store still had a copy of the book and had not heard about the retraction. The staff there had not gotten a request from Tyndale to pull products off the shelves. On the other hand, Family Christian Bookstores are pulling the book off the shelves and the manager of the one I called said Tyndale had requested them. Thus far, Tyndale’s spokesperson has not replied about the company’s plans.
The second, and more difficult question is: When did Tyndale House learn that Beth Malarkey and her son denied the contents of the book? Given how long Alex Malarkey’s mom has been speaking out on this matter, it is hard to understand how Tyndale House did not know about it. However, neither Tyndale House nor Beth Malarkey has not responded to requests for this specific information.
The answers to these questions have consequences in dollar signs and trust. If Tyndale does not make a good faith effort to pull existing product off the shelves, they risk further erosion in their image, while making additional money from unsuspecting customers. If Tyndale House knew the boy had recanted his story, then some disclosure should have been made with a proactive public statement. One hopes Tyndale House will move to quickly restore public trust by disclosing the reasons for waiting until yesterday, just after Lifeway Stores pulled the products from the shelves, to take a similar step.
UPDATE: The website supporting the book is now down (google cache as of January 15, 2015). The domain is owned by Tyndale House. The product page on Tyndale’s website still is up as is the promo video on the You Tube page.

Research for Mark Driscoll's Delayed Book — The Problem with Christianity — Available to the Masses

This is an interesting development.
The research which formed the foundation for Mark Driscoll’s now postponed book, The Problem with Christianity has now been made available for free download on the Mars Hill Church website.
The way the description of the research report closes makes me wonder if Driscoll is going to release his book:

Our hope is this valuable research can be helpful for you as you prepare content such as sermons, books, or blog posts.

When he took his six week “focus break,” Driscoll said he had agreed to postpone the publication of the book until a future “season.”
Now someone else might turn it into a book first.
I have to give some unknown decision maker at Mars Hill kudos. The research for the book cost Mars Hill Church six figures and now the members and the rest of us can read it.
 

Daily Beast: Evangelicals Scam the NYT Bestseller List

This morning, the Daily Beast published my article summarizing recent material I have obtained.
There is still more to develop on this story. For instance, it appears that the web of relationships involving Sealy Yates, Kevin Small, David Jeremiah and the Parrotts is longstanding. I hope to develop that part of the story more this coming week. As I pointed out in the post earlier this afternoon, Driscoll was a late comer to the party and an outsider to the club. Small is on the board of the Parrotts’ non-profit and Yates is on the board of Jeremiah’s Turning Point. Jeremiah credited Small’s publishing genius as far back as 2006.
It is hard to say if these folks will open up and reveal how all of this works.
Whether or not they do may depend on how much more media scrutiny develops. Christianity Today had a small blurb Friday linking to my blog posts. I think other stories are coming.
What I would like to see is a straightforward explanation from the agents, consultants, authors and publishers about the way they work the New York Times system. In the case of Driscoll’s contract, deception was involved. Has that occurred for the other authors? It appears that way but perhaps the agents, consultants, authors and publishers do not believe they are being deceptive. I would like to hear their side of it. Thus far, outside of a promise of a reply that didn’t come from Tyndale House, there have been no replies from those who have engaged in the best-seller campaigns.
When Mark Driscoll used this approach, his critics and the media were all over the story. Where are they now?
Yates and Yates have a significant cadre of authors they represent. Do all of them use ResultSource? I asked two of them but received no answer.
More broadly, I think the NYT Bestseller brand is tarnished by the actions of ResultSource. I asked the NYTs if they planned any kind of correction for those books proven to benefit from gaming the system, and the paper declined to comment.
On WORD-FM (Pittsburgh) last week, I was interviewed by Kathy Emmons. Her suggestion to the NYTs was to permanently ban any author caught cheating.
Clearly, this is a problem larger than evangelical authors but it appears that it would take evangelicals to change course given that some on the inside of this are within the camp.
 

Hey Christian Author: What Would a Bestseller Do For Your Brand?

Les and Leslie Parrott are evangelical Seattle-based authors who specialize in marriage and relationship issues. They have written numerous books, some of which have made it to the New York Times Bestseller List. At least one of those books played a short, peripheral role in the drama that has been Mark Driscoll over the last couple of years. Let me explain.
The Parrotts, like David Jeremiah (who I wrote about yesterday), have worked with Kevin Small, the CEO of ResultSource, in their publishing business. One of things ResultSource does is to conduct Bestseller Campaigns. In such a campaign, they literally guarantee an author that a book with show up on the New York Times Bestseller List or the consulting fee is refunded (see Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill’s contract with ResultSource).
bestsellercampaign
When Mark Driscoll’s literary agent Sealy Yates wanted to set up meetings at Mars Hill to work out the logistics behind the 2011-2012 Real Marriage bestseller campaign, he encouraged the Mars Hill troops by telling them of another successful bestseller campaign just conducted in September 2011. The excerpt below is from a Mars Hill communication from agent Sealy Yates:
YatestoMHCParrott
In other words Mars Hill Church: see what you have to look forward to by working with “Kevin and his company.”
The Parrotts’ book did indeed make #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List during the week of September 25, 2011.
ParrottsNumberOne
 
As sometimes happens with a campaign that games the system, the next week the book fell off the chart. ResultSource uses their many accounts to buy up books during a concentrated period of time. After that, if the book doesn’t continue selling, it drops off the chart.
The Parrotts have referred to Kevin Small as a part of their team and chair of their non-profit organization in previous books. I wrote the Parrotts last week and asked for comment. I also asked publisher of The Hour That Matters Most, Tyndale House, for comment about their part in the scheme. Initially, Tyndale House spokesman Todd Starowitz said last week he would have a comment for me, but nothing has come this week. I have written Sealy Yates and Kevin Small as well with no reply.
I also wrote the New York Times Bestseller List for comment. I wondered if they discovered that religious authors often manipulated sales figures. Danielle Rhoades-Ha, Director of Communications for the New York Times, replied that authors of many types of books engage in such tactics, and explained that “attempts to manipulate our rankings with falsified sales or strategic orchestrated schemes often through legitimate bookstores are by no means limited to books that offer religious and spiritual guidance.”
According to Rhoades-Ha, companies like ResultSource are on the Times’ radar:

In response, we have developed a system to detect anomalies and patterns that are typical of attempts to gain a false ranking and warrant further inquiry. We know which publishers are the most likely to attempt such things. We know what tools they use and with whom — which organizations, special interest web sites, “consultants” and shady order fulfillment houses and retailers — they tend to collaborate.

Given the language used by Ms. Rhoades-Ha, I don’t think the Times approves of these schemes:

Pirate plots abound wherever books can be purchased in bulk through affiliated organizational or corporate funds, churches or political action committees. Other red flags include large anonymous online bulk sales and e-book sales (which do not require traditional inventory accountability) and events and conferences that “give out” books but actually record the book sales as part of the ticket price.

She said that the Times reserves the right to keep titles off the list if they don’t meet their standards and they use a dagger symbol “as a signal to readers that the book attains its ranking largely but not exclusively from bulk purchases.” She added that they attempt to spot those who try to manipulate their rankings.
Tomorrow I examine the ethics of manipulating books sales. I have comments from a Christian publisher and various views on the subject.

A Tyndale House Divided

This morning, David Sessions, editor at Daily Beast, placed this note at the top of my article there.

Editor’s Note: After this story was published, Tyndale House issued a statement contradicting what they had previously told The Daily Beast. The publisher affirmed their relationship with Mark Driscoll and said they plan to reprint his book, A Call to Resurgence, as sales demand. For further updates on the story,click here.

On July 1, Tyndale House leaders issued a statement contradicting what their own senior public relations manager Todd Starowitz told me about reprinting A Call to Resurgence. Very shortly after the statement was issued, Mr. Starowitz replied to me via email and said I had quoted him accurately but that he had given me inaccurate information. After Mr. Starowitz confirmed this to me, I expected to see a correction from Tyndale House. However, as of this morning, I have seen no correction from Tyndale.
Let that sink in: Tyndale House’s public statement contradicts the public statement of their own senior public relations manager. I realize PR is not my field, but that doesn’t seem like state of the art practice.
There are other aspects to the situation which also cause me to wonder what is going on at Tyndale House. I know the Tuesday public statement from Tyndale House says they are all in with Driscoll and Resurgence and The Problem with Christianity but all I got from Tyndale about Resurgence last week was silence.
My interest in the fate of The Problem with Christianity started on May 30 when I tweeted Tyndale House about the publication date for the book. Their reply is below.


 
As far as I knew, that was the first public statement about the fate of the book. I followed up with the following questions:

@TyndaleHouse Is there a new scheduled date or is it on hold? And can you say what the delay is about?

So even at this stage, Tyndale House could have expressed support for Driscoll. They could have said then what they said on Tuesday, but instead, they didn’t answer.
Then on June 18, I wrote the following inquiries to Todd Starowitz, Tyndale’s senior public relations manager:
Mr. Starowitz:

On May 30, someone from you twitter account alerted me that Mark Driscoll’s next book The Problem with Christianity will not be published as planned in the Fall.
However, when I followed up to ask about a new date for publication, there was no answer. I am writing to ask if there is a current publication date for that book.
I have also heard that Tyndale is reevaluating their relationship with Rev. Driscoll and may not publish the book. Can you shed light on that story?

If Tyndale wanted to say something about their relationship with Driscoll, they could have done so in mid-June. Starowitz answered:

At this time we do not have a pub date for The Problem with Christianity.

I wrote back the same day and asked:

Do you still plan to publish Elsy (sic) Fitzpatrick’s, Good News for Weary Women? And then are there any other books slated for publication via the Resurgence imprint in the future?

Starowitz wrote back right away and said:

Elsy (sic) Fitzpatrick’s* book currently has a BBD of 8/1/14 and a release date of 9/14.
To my knowledge we do not have any additional Resurgence titles that have release dates scheduled at this time.

My follow up:

Todd: Thanks again for addressing my prior questions. Your answers made me think of a related follow up. Did Tyndale print a paperback version of A Call to Resurgence? And do you plan to reprint the hard cover version of ACTR?

Starowitz replied:

Warren, we did not print a paperback version. I don’t expect that we will reprint the hardcover.

I wrote back the next day (6/19) to see if I could discern the meaning of these remarkable statements coming from Tyndale:

Todd: Are you at liberty to say why there is no publication date for The Problem with Christianity? Is the delay due to a delay on Rev. Driscoll’s end or did Tyndale decide not to publish the book for some reason (and if so, can you say what that reason is?). Do you anticipate that Tyndale will ever publish the book?

He wrote back with a promise to get the information when Ron Beers returned the following week:

The questions I answered yesterday were easily garnered from our production schedules. Ron Beers, one of Tyndale’s publishers, will need to answer these questions and is out of the office and unreachable until early next week. I will provide you with a response when I am able to touch base with him next week.

The following week, I wrote a couple of times to ask for answers to those follow up questions. On one occasion, Starowitz said he would work on getting the answers. The last two times, I told Todd that an article would come out on Monday in the Daily Beast. For instance on June 28, I asked:

Todd – My deadline has been extended to tomorrow and so I thought I would try one more time to see if there is anything else you can say about the Resurgence-Tyndale relationship. Otherwise, I will just use what you already sent.

Why didn’t Tyndale tell me on June 28 what they angrily proclaimed on July 1? How hard would it have been for Tyndale to say last week what they said this week?
In my opinion, Tyndale owes Driscoll an apology for treating a publishing partner so cavalierly. I asked on multiple occasions about the nature of their relationship and Tyndale said nothing, even knowing that the information Starowitz gave me was coming out in a national publication. In addition to an apology to Driscoll, they need to retract their angry, self-righteous press release and accept responsibility for the incorrect information they provided.
I don’t know what is going on at Tyndale but right now, it appears to be a House divided.
Additional note: This is an interesting blog from Joel Connelly comparing Tyndale’s turnabout to World Vision’s reversal on gay marriage.
*The author’s name is actually Elyse Fitzpatrick.